CVE-2026-72020
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ipvs: reset full ip_vs_seq structs in ip_vs_conn_new
Commit 9a05475cebdd ('ipvs: avoid kmem_cache_zalloc in
ip_vs_conn_new') changed ip_vs_conn_new() to allocate an ip_vs_conn
object with kmem_cache_alloc(). The function then initializes many
fields explicitly, but only resets in_seq.delta and out_seq.delta in the
two struct ip_vs_seq members.
That leaves init_seq and previous_delta uninitialized. This is normally
harmless while the corresponding IP_VS_CONN_F_IN_SEQ or
IP_VS_CONN_F_OUT_SEQ flag is clear. For connections learned from a sync
message, however, ip_vs_proc_conn() preserves those flags from
IP_VS_CONN_F_BACKUP_MASK and passes opt=NULL when the message omits
IPVS_OPT_SEQ_DATA. In that case the new connection can be hashed with
SEQ flags set but with the rest of in_seq/out_seq still containing stale
slab data.
When a packet for such a connection is later handled by an IPVS
application helper, vs_fix_seq() and vs_fix_ack_seq() use
previous_delta and init_seq to rewrite TCP sequence numbers. A malformed
sync message can therefore make forwarded packets carry stale slab bytes
in their TCP seq/ack numbers, and can also corrupt the forwarded TCP
flow.
Reset both struct ip_vs_seq members completely before publishing the
connection. This matches the existing 'reset struct ip_vs_seq' comment
and keeps the sequence-adjustment gates inactive unless valid sequence
data is installed later.